The end of days

Current music: I don’t listen to music! Honestly, why can’t they have…
Current book: “The Man Who Fell to Earth” by Walter Tevis
Current film: “Tuck Everlasting” with the beautiful Jonathan Jackson and the absolutely to melt for Amy Irving

People are getting all gooey the past few days on the board, waxing nostalgic and heaping praise on each other and on the board itself and generally acting like it’s the last day of school before graduation.

Part of me understands their reasons, part of me is panicked that all the non AtS-watchers are just going to disappear under the assumption that there will be no more Buffy talk on the board. And maybe they don’t want to talk about it if there is nothing new to talk about, but among us think-too-muchers, there is plenty to talk about.

Last night’s A&E special brought it all back. Seasons 1 through 3–my personal favorites, the angst that was season 2 and the beauty of the ending of “Becoming, pt 2”. I didn’t join fandom until after “Lover’s Walk”, but I did start lurking at the Bronze at the end of Becoming pt 2 because I needed reassurance that Angel wasn’t gone. Angelus be damned, and maybe because of Angelus in part, Angel had become my favorite character and he had to come back.

I basically remembered why I liked this show in the first place, because there haven’t been a lot of reminders in recent seasons. Episodes like “Selfless” and “OMWF” are exceptions to that, but my interest in the show has been kind of mechanical, as going-through-the-motions as Buffy herself. And I will complete the episode analyses because I believe in completeness.

But part of me really needs a break from it all. I suppose I’ll cry, too, next Tuesday night at nine, for old time’s sake, but I don’t think it’ll really sink in until later. Right now, I’m too burnt out, in need of a break from the episode analyses and the board. The absolutely bizarre ending of AtS Season 4 didn’t help with that much.

So this blog will, hopefully, become a place for me to talk about other things, non-Buffy things, non-Angel things, a little, more intimate community where I feel a bit more free and more open to self-expression.

Not that I’m criticizing my own board. It is an amazing place, so I’m told, very different from other internet communities. I don’t know. I don’t go to other boards. But it has its share of human foibles aggravated by the medium of the internet and sometimes you just need to hang back, step away, even if it is the last week of new episodes.

So back to my movie, which is promising to be a magical thing with beautiful boys and tom-boyish girls and immortality and deep poetic narrative and joy and contemplative philosophical moments.

Why I’d rather squint at my computer screen on the weekend than be out in the sunshine

Sometimes when I’m feeling unnoticed and convinced no one actually reads my website anymore, only the discussion board, I find nifty little things like this:

“On a related note, you may be interested in this website: All Things Philosophical on BtVS and AtS, which I always go to after I’ve watched an episode of Buffy/Angel. ”

“Thanks for that link to the “All Things Philosophical on BtVS and AtS” I just wasted an hour of my life there and look forward to wasting some more there later. ”

My counter program (www.TheCounter.com) gives me the URL’s of sites that refer to my site. Sometimes I can find random people like this talking about my website, usually in a nice way, and it give me a happy.

Then again, there’s stuff like this:

“There But For the Grace of God

Let he who is without 500 board games cast the first stone, but where exactly is the line between academic analysis and irredeemable geekiness? Because from where I sit, this site has catapulted beyond it. I’m just not quite sure in which direction.”

Sticks and stones, children. But being called a geek never hurt me.